Beatrice Brigden

Beatrice Brigden
Born	(1888-01-30)30 January 1888 Hastings, Ontario, Canada
Died	22 February 1977(1977-02-22) (aged 89) Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
Nationality	Canadian
Occupations	Social activist feminist politician
Years active	1914-1977

Beatrice Alice Brigden (1888-1977) was a Canadian social reformer, feminist and politician. She was a radical for her time, advocating for birth control, the intellectual parity of men and women, and economic security among many other issues. She began her career as a social reformer under the guidance of the Methodist church's Social Gospel but moved more radically to the left when it became apparent from her work with immigrants and laborers that the church was not supportive of social and economic reforms. She was one of the early members of the Brandon Labor Church and was a founder of both the People's Forum Speaker's Bureau and the Labor Women's Social and Economic Conference, the latter of which was merged into the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (Manitoba Section). Though she was one of the founders of the Co-operative Commonwealth Federation she was unsuccessful in several attempts to win a seat in the Manitoba legislature. In addition to her many programs for women, Brigden also was one of the founders of the Indian-Métis Friendship Centres.

Her biographer, Allison Campbell wrote of her: "By the standards of her time, to be ambitious, deliberately single, determinedly self-supporting and continuously outspoken was cause enough to be labeled as a radical." Social reform was not a side-line to her wifely duties, it was her career.^[1]